Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho

FEDERALISM, DIRECT DEMOCRACY AND THE QUALITY
OF PUBLIC DELIBERATION: THE GMO DEBATE
José Luis Egío
DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY, MURCIA UNIVERSITY (SPAIN)
1. Introduction
177
WHILE A FEDERALIST DISTRIBUTION OF POLITICAL COMPETENCES, inside the
State is often considered as a good way to improve public deliberation
(regarding on both institutional and civic actors); the link between
high quality deliberation and direct democracy is unclear (Habermas,
J. (1985). Erläuterungen zur Diskursethik).
The exciting public debate about GMO food will serve us to focus
on the relationship between federalism, direct democracy and deliberation’s
quality. Our paper will present an empirical contrast between the
way in which regional newspapers of Bayern (Germany), Saint-Gallen
(Switzerland), Aragon and Murcia (Spain) informed about this topic
between 2003 and 2010.
Taking into account elements as the number of pieces of information
per year (as regards to Switzerland considering also the press
activity around the key days in which a referendum took place), the
bias of news and editorials and the source and geographical attachment
of the information (international, national or regional parties,
institutional actors, associations, corporations,…), we will get hold
of some objective dates about the way in which federalism and direct
FEDERALISM, DIRECT
DEMOCRACY AND THE
QUALITY OF PUBLIC
DELIBERATION: THE
GMO DEBATE
José Luis Egío